METH: The Oregon Front

A Special Series from OPB.

TV: The Oregon Front 2007

A year ago FRONTLINE: The Meth Epidemic, produced in partnership by OPB, FRONTLINE and The Oregonian, explored the growing methamphetamine epidemic in Oregon and across the nation. This award-winning documentary and the OPB panel discussion that followed it, "Meth: The Oregon Front," sprung from a series by The Oregonian's Steve Suo.

A lot has changed in the last year. Suo has continued to break stories on the changing international meth trade. New laws approved by Congress and the Oregon Legislature have had substantial impacts on the purity and price of meth on the street. But the drug remains readily available and devastating to those who become addicted to it.

In this program, Colin Fogarty gets an update on the meth issue in Oregon from three of the experts profiled in the FRONTLINE report. The Oregonian's Steve Suo talks about how new laws are hampering meth cartels in Mexico, but allowing Chinese gangs to fill the gap. Rob Bovett of the Oregon Narcotics Enforcement Association describes how Oregon has seen the steepest decline in meth lab seizures, due in part to the strictest controls on the meth precursor, pseudoephedrine. And Rita Sullivan, therapist and administrator at OnTrack in Medford, discusses how that progress hasn't ended the epidemic.

Meth: The Oregon Front

Colin Fogarty leads a panel discussion on the impact of meth in Oregon with a panel of experts from the front lines of Oregons meth epidemic. Originally broadcast in February 2006.